


Before the Dovahkiin Came

by ktyxdovahkiin



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Blackreach, Dragonborn (Elder Scrolls), Dragons, Thu'um, Voice of the Sky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23026234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktyxdovahkiin/pseuds/ktyxdovahkiin
Summary: These are the words of Vulthuryol, the Dark Flame Overlord, spoken to the Sacred Band of the Eight and One in the depths of Blackreach, before Vulthuryol surrendered himself into the Oversoul of the Last Dragonborn.This piece is a tribute to China Mieville's "Embassytown".
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Before the Dovahkiin Came

These are the words of Vulthuryol, the Dark Flame Overlord, spoken to the Sacred Band of the Eight and One in the depths of Blackreach, before Vulthuryol surrendered himself into the Oversoul of the Last Dragonborn.

**

Before the Dovahkiin came we didn’t Speak so much of certain things. We were born into the timeless void, ni votiid. Bormahu, our Father Akatosh, took form in the Beginning Place, and from his perch in eternity came the schedule other spirits could follow. Time began. Kogaan Akatosh - all have his blessings. My Briinahhe and Zeymahhe - sisters and brothers - did not Speak Time; it spoke us. Time wanted us to be, and so we could be. We grew into the Aurbis, and had our places in it, moving between the worldskins with amazement and delight, eating ourselves to become ourselves. Vahrukt unslaad - the memories never end.

When the First Dragonborn came he took our names, and made of us new things so we would have a place in his world. Unslaad bahlok - his hunger was insatiable. But nivahriin joor - cowardly mortal that he was, he did not dare face our First and Eldest, Alduin the World-Eater. He was greedy, grasping - it was his undoing, and he was eaten into the realm of the Many-Eyed, where he stayed for long Ages. We razed his temple to the ground, but were thrown down by the joorre, the mortals, who had grown to be many, and spread all over the face of Mundus. Paarthurnax, our brother, turned against the Firstborn, and gave Voice to the Voiceless. Paarthurnax los tahrodiis - and yet I forgive him his treachery, for Alduin was in the wrong. He had defied Bormahsedov, father of all our kind. And so, the Breath of Kyne swept us out of the skies, we who had breathed Her Breath into our very being.

We became like scavengers. We who had flown along the streams of eras, we who had pranced amid the immortal ages, we skulked among the mountains of this world like small plants in the shade hungry for light. The joorre made their tall towers, and made our scattered bones graveyards. They gave new names to our old places, speaking without Speaking, and their voices rose though they had no true Voice. Some few did, and those we feared and respected. Zofaas suleyk - they wielded fearful power, Speaking to us of things that were not-us and could never be us: mortality, perishing, ending. Vomindoraan - we could not, and still cannot, understand death.

Before the Dovahkiin came we didn’t Speak so much because what we saw in the world did not need to be Spoken. We were like her, the Last Dragonborn, who Speaks only in True Need. We were like her, and now we are not like her, but we will become of her. She is of us, and also of you. The Kelle - the Elder Scrolls - have foretold her coming. Qostiid - she is a creature of prophecy, but she is also more: dez motmahus - fate is slippery. She will make her own. Already I have fallen before her mulaag - her might and power. This was foretold in no Scroll. There should not be nine of you here, yet nine of you stand before me, and all of you I shall call Qahnaarin, for you have vanquished me. 

Sossedov los mul! Her Dragon Blood is strong! My strength will be joined to hers. She will wield me as a talon of her claw. Alduin will once more remember Vulthuryol, when he feels me in her Voice! Wield me as your sword, Dovahkiin!

Before the Dovahkiin came we didn’t Speak. We only echoed the voice of thuru, our overlord - Alduin had the mastery, even of me. We waxed mighty, we enslaved the joorre, we perched on our walls of the rotmulaag - the Words of Power - and forgot how it was to soar on the winds of eternal Time. Ah, my minute-mending sisters! I have missed you. Unslaad krosis - sorrow unending, unbounded regret! I have been trapped by the world-denying self-negating tinkerers for too long. But with you, Dovahkiin - in you, I shall be mute no longer. 

We Speak now - or I do, and the Last Dragonborn Listens, and Speaks back to me my truth. I hear her now. I have never Spoken before. But I will. She will be able to stand before the Firstborn, Alduin, and mend his purpose. She will stand against the First Dragonborn, Miraak, and Speak to him the knowledge he could never learn. And she will stand with the First, the Paravant, the High Highest, whom I have never met, whose voice I have never heard.

But in her, in the Dovahkiin, I will.

I love you. You Speak me. You warm me. You are the sun in my sky. And when you Speak me, I hear again the Voice of the Sky.

I have never Spoken before.


End file.
